English

Sometimes we have to step back from what we are doing, from what we are so busy with every day, every hour. It is necessary to take the time to enjoy the silence, or the writing and wisdom of others in order to fill up the void which living life leaves.

If we neglect the replenishment of our inner being and the strengthening of our core, we run the risk of becoming empty vessels without substance. We become like robots going through the daily motions without questioning or pausing to unravel life’s fascinating mysteries, and to understand our higher calling.

The simple act of withdrawing into yourself for a few minutes, or sitting alone in silence without talking, listening to the whisper of your inner voice guiding you on your way, will energise and lift your spirit.

Come away from social media for a while. Set your blogging aside for a spell. Stop talking for a few minutes and just listen. Quiet your mind and refrain from seeking company. Learn to be comfortable with your silence, with being alone.

Wisdom and inspiration flow from a quiet spring, not from the roaring white waters that are the thoughts occupying your mind. It is within your power to be still, to halt the flow of incessant noise, voice and thoughts.

In that silence, you will find comfort, calm and serenity.

I have withdrawn from posting on Facebook and Twitter for a while to concentrate on my writing. In felt the need to listen and watch for inspiration quietly entering the space so occupied by social media. I am happy that I made the choice not to become so blocked by what’s out there that I am in danger of losing the precious wisdom of what’s in here.

Open your mind and set your imagination free. There is no reason to limit what can be imagined. In setting it free you open the floodgates of unlimited possibilities. Now start living them as they come into being.

There is such freedom in not knowing. Why force the gifts I am showered with daily? I asked, I let go and live NOW, in the present. I will not waste my energy on sighing for tomorrow. It may never come, but now, now is here, right in this moment. I choose to live with joy, excitement, laughter and fun right now. I become a child again, eagerly finding the wonder in small things, living fully in each moment, accepting the miracles raining down. And not knowing what to expect.

I hold on to this moment and the possibilities are endless. No need to chase, push, convince. I asked and it is done. I live life and love NOW.

Autumn in South Africa is a beautiful season. The days are shorter, filled with light that hurts the eyes. The swallows have long since embarked on their long journey to warmer climes, and their departure left us with the warning to expect an early and cold winter.

I am filled with wonder at the beauty of the clear blue sky. There are white clouds slowly drifting along until later in the day when the breeze becomes stronger, and turns into a willful child scattering multi-colored leaves across the road and into doorways.

There is a sense of waiting; a lingering timelessness in the days, as if listening in silence for signs of approaching winter.

I am also filled with sadness for another season gone, another life slipping into forgetfulness as slowly as the clouds in the silent sky. And when I turn to look, it is gone, leaving only vague longing and lovely memories.

I am bound to the here and now, to this moment where I am all I’m ever going to be. And I’m filled with joy at the prospect of reaching out for all there is. Because I am a part of the whole, the completeness of creation with its vast and unfathomable richness.

Awe at the magnitude of all that fills and surround me force me to joyously acknowledge: We are indeed one with the great universal mind and all there is.

Does it upset you to see time slipping by? The moments turn to seconds to minutes to hours to days to weeks to months to years . . . We are amazed and turn to one another to ask: where has time gone? And we race into the next year for the madness to start all over again.

Do you sometimes wonder if it could be different? That you could hold on to time and make it stop? Those are the occasions when you spend a precious hour with a beloved or, hopefully, allow yourself some space to breathe and just be. Those are treasured moments; cherished and remembered with love.

I came upon this beautiful piece written by Gautama Budha:

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.

To watch the birth and death of beings are like looking at the movements of a dance.

A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,

Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey – stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. But the expressions of life are ephemeral, momentary, transient,” says Deepak Chopra in his wonderful book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.

Why then do we worry about time if we can live fully now, this moment? If we know that this moment is ours to fill with expressions of whatever we find to be precious and wonderful? That we don’t have forever because yesterday is gone, a mere memory, tomorrow may never come. That today is a PRESENT.

May love fill you to the brim, may your cup run over to fill those of others, may you be so blessed right now, this moment, that your spirit soars to take you higher than you’ve ever been. So that you can see what you have is only the present, now.

The gardener dips deep into the bag, brings forth a handful of seeds, and opens her hand to let them float away. The joyous wind picks them up and gently scatter them like blessings.

Her garden is not contained, nor is it limited to region or country. It is wherever the seeds settle.

Softy, quietly, the receptive earth will embrace the seeds, and soon there will be flowers and trees, ferns and forests. The soil had not been prepared and the plants not watered, yet contained within each seed, is the fruit and the flower that will bloom where the wind of Providence takes it.

It is not for us to determine the place of the garden; our work is to sow the seeds of wisdom, truth and beauty, to scatter the blessings wide and far, and not to attach ourselves to the outcome. The outcome is the domain of Providence.

So keep sowing your seeds, fellow gardener, and one day you will see the flowers and the forests you have planted.

I am not a poet, but I love poetry. It speaks to the heart, it engages the soul, and it takes you on a magical journey, full of wonderment. Poetry must come from the beautiful soul of the poet, and it speaks to other beautiful souls.

Today I feel the need to share love poems with you and I start off with some exquisite love poems and extracts from great love stories. Read it, and feel the sheer joy of being lifted, to go somewhere beautiful, without leaving your comfortable chair. Open your heart to it, and it will speak to you.

Oh, love’s joy and agony inspire the mind, and loosen the tongue…

1.

When I think of you,

Fireflies in the marsh rise

Like the soul’s jewels,

Lost to eternal longing,

Abandoning my body.

Izumi Shikibu

2.

Sometimes, everywhere I look,

O my love, I see your radiant face.

With you ever present,

How could I close my eyes to anything?

Kabir

3.

Late evening finally comes:

I unlatch the door

And quietly await

The one

Who greets me in my dreams.

Otomo no Yakamochi

4.

I hide behind simple things so

you’ll find me;

if you don’t find me, you’ll find

the things,

you’ll touch what my hand has touched,

and our hand-prints will merge…

Yannis Ritsos

5.

With love’s light wings

Did I o’erperch these walls;

For stony limits cannot

hold love out,

And what love can do, that

Dares love attempt.

William Shakespeare

6.

Hamlet:

“I will have poetry in my life, and adventure, and love.

Love above all…

Not the artful postures of love,

not playful games for amusement of an evening

but love that overthrows life –

unbiddable, ungovernable –

like a riot in the heart, and nothing be done –

come ruin or rapture…”

William Shakespeare

7.

SONNET XX1

Say over again, and yet once over again,

That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated

Should seem ‘a cuckoo song,’ as thou dost treat it,

Remember, never to the hill or plain,

Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain

Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.

Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted

By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain,

Cry ‘Speak once more – thou lovest!’ Who can fear too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,

Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me – toll

The silver iterance! – only minding, Dear,

To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

8.

LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY

Over the mountains

And under the waves,

Under the fountains

And under the graves;

Under floods that are deepest,

Which Neptune obey,

Over rocks that are steepest,

Love will find out the way.

When there is no place

For the glow-worm to lie,

When there is no space

For receipt of a fly;

When the midge dares not venture

Lest herself fast she lay,

If love come, he will enter

And will find out the way.

Anonymous

9.

From Cyrano de Bergerac:

“I love you, I’m overwhelmed, I love you to the point of madness! Your name is in my heart like a bell shaken by my constant trembling, ringing day and night: Roxane, Roxane, Roxane! Loving everything about you, I forget nothing. I remember the day last year, the twelfth of May, when you wore your hair in a different style. Just as a man who has looked at the sun too long sees red circles everywhere, when I’ve gazed on the bright glory of your hair, my dazzled eyes see golden spots on everything.”

Edmond Rostand

10.

Extract From Wuthering Heights

Catherine to Nelly:

“I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I was entirely contained here? My great miseries in the world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he was annihilated, the Universe would turn into a mighty stranger. I should not seem part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter change the trees – my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath – a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff – he’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself – but, as my own being – so, don’t talk of our separation again – it is impracticable…”

Perhaps, just perhaps, you are at this moment facing a life-changing choice. And as you know, all choices have consequences.

Because we are blessed with the freedom of choice, we are not always prepared for the consequences of our choices. We do not realise that we create our own reality, and our own destiny day by day, through the choices we make.

It is even more so when choosing your mate. We sometimes choose to fall in love with love. And we very soon choose to fall out of love with love, disillusioned and unfulfilled by such chance encounters.

BUT … if you meet your soul mate, there is no mistaking him or her, or the choice presented to you. You will love, not because of a beautiful face and body, but because of the beautiful soul. And you will make your choice to either follow the insistent whisper of your heart, or face a lifetime of regret.

I came across a very beautiful poem written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, extracted from her book The Invitation. Perhaps your choice will be easier after reading this:

THE INVITATION

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live, or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

As she read the words, she felt overwhelmed with longing. Her whole being cried out to be there. She did not realise her own need was so great, begging to be out in the open where the high winds blew, where the grass ripple like the waves of the ocean.

To see the trees gently moving in the wind, to rest for a while on the great rocks with the valley spread out below and the river in the distance. To breathe the clear air and to close her eyes and hear the quiet voice of immeasurable greatness. To see into eternity, to be there in the limitless void, gently floating with the clouds.

She is once again part of the universe with all its wonder, and all its perfection and knowledge, and she is free, infinite, eternal silence, and joy. She is perfectly balanced, and all of the creative energy that is, flow into her being. She could be anywhere and nowhere, she could be visible or take flight into the invisible known in an instant.

Today her heart is open and sensitive. Too delicate, because tears come easily and the voice of beauty constantly whispers softly to her. She is easily bruised and delicate as the petals of the rose lying on the lawn in the back yard.

She is very still inside and acutely aware of the vastness of the soul; suddenly overwhelmed by the wonder of it. As she stands in the pool of sunlight, the roses in the bowl on the low table starts glowing with an almost unearthly beauty, shimmering, luminous. The unbelievably beautiful violin concerto spills through the room and clothes her from head to toe in sound, until her whole being vibrates with the sheer magic of it. She is lost to time and reality, she is touched by eternity and forever changed.

From now on she will see more beauteous things, feel more joy and wonder, hear more heavenly music, smell forever the delicate fragrance of the flowers, and taste the love that is in store for the truly receptive soul.

May you experience the touch of the wondrous magic that came to her today.

I have taken my first step on my journey up the mountain of the English language. I have long felt the urge to write in this, my second, language, and the time has come for me to scale the heights and breathe the air from this mountain top.

I am still on the ground at the foot of the mountain, but I have started; I have taken the first steps.

Let me proceed ere I grow tired of talking and forget to save my breath for my long journey.